Learn More in these related articles:

deity common to all the early Germanic peoples, a great warrior represented as a red-bearded, middle-aged man of enormous strength, an implacable foe to the harmful race of giants but benevolent toward mankind. His figure was generally secondary to that of the god Odin, who in some traditions was...

...the giants. His main weapon is a short-handled hammer, Mjölnir, with which he smashes the skull of his antagonists. One of his best-known adventures describes his pulling the cosmic serpent Jörmungand (Jörmungandr), which surrounds the world, out of the ocean. As he fails to kill the monster then, he will have to face it again in a combat to the finish in which they both die,...

With the female giant Angerboda (Angrboda: “Distress Bringer”), Loki produced the progeny Hel, the goddess of death; Jörmungand, the serpent that surrounds the world; and Fenrir (Fenrisúlfr), the wolf. Loki is also credited with giving birth to Sleipnir, Odin’s eight-legged horse.

External Links

Britannica Web sites

(also spelled Jormungandr), in Norse mythology, the evil serpent that encircled the world, biting its own tail. Jormungand (which means "wolf-serpent") was also known as the Midgard Serpent, or the World Serpent, because its body coiled around the whole Earth underneath the oceans, and the Earth was called Midgard in Norse cosmology. The serpent’s eternal enemy was the thunder god Thor.